All equal before the law

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (134) assesses other aspects of the criminal libel case brought by a housemaid against her former employer. Here, a deeper analysis, including genealogy, supports a wider consideration of a process where a working person used the law to win against a ‘better person’.

Victorian Bournemouth (134): Emily Shakespeare

Background

Emily Shakespeare came from a multi-national background. Her father, Cortland Taylor, an American, served with the East India Company, recorded as part of the artillery at Fort St George, Madras. He may have served also in Calcutta, for Emily gave that as her birthplace. Her husband, also born as an expatriate, followed his father into the Indian Imperial judiciary. They married in Madras, 1849. Attested in Blackheath during 1871, Emily may never before have seen England, all her children born in India. Although her husband returned to India that summer, Emily elected to stay. Her son had started at Harrow School. That autumn, she moved to Harrow-on-the-Hill, perhaps anxious about him. Although her husband left a small estate (£200, 1875), Emily came from a privileged background, used perhaps only to Indian servants and inexperienced with handling English domestics who staffed her London household in 1871.

Relationships with servants

By the late 1880s, Emily and daughters lived in a Somerset village near Frome. She defended two further cases against servants seeking compensation after summary dismissal. A third she prosecuted for assault. All men worked with the horses. One sought money for medical expenses after receiving a bite from horse. Another wanted redress for receiving no notice when a horse suffered harm. The third, became ‘beastly drunk’, received instant dismissal, and tried to throw mother and daughter down the steps. Her daughters, now adult, supported her in court. The magistrates judged in Emily’s favour each time. The cases suggest that the family dealt with a crisis in employment relationships with obduracy and without negotiation. In India strict segregation enabled the British to maintain order. In later Victorian England, however, social structures had acquired elasticity. Even servants might harbour ambitions of social advancement, deference to gentility no longer a lifetime expectation. 

Victorian Bournemouth (134): Lydia Crouchman

Background

Lydia Crouchman, a generation younger than Mrs Shakespeare, came from near Harlow, Essex, her father an agricultural labourer. Not twenty, she had secured domestic employment in south London. Soon afterwards, she took a job with Emily Shakespeare, but, when given notice less than a month after starting, did not seem to have harboured resentment. Furthermore, Mrs Shakespeare wrote her a reference good enough to obtain a new post. Lydia showed resource in several ways at this point. She had a good level of literacy, writing letters to the Briants in Bournemouth, placing an advertisement in the press. Her marriage certificate (1879) shows a clear, bold signature. Undeterred by a police examination and a rebuff from her future employers, Lydia had the presence of mind to retain the libellous evidence against her. Furthermore, she had the confidence to employ a solicitor and proceed against a member of the gentility.

Network

At an apparent social disadvantage to Mrs Shakespeare, Lydia Crouchman perhaps benefitted from a network comprised of family and friends. In her evidence, she referred to a sister living nearby, perhaps offering temporary lodgings before Bournemouth. After Mrs Shakespeare’s accusation, Lydia took advice from a brother, also living in the vicinity. He may have supported her during the police interview. That Lydia left her lodgings to move to Mrs Puttnam’s may show another aspect of her network, even though she came there the night before Mrs Shakespeare accused her. Her landlady’s husband clerked for John Scard, the solicitor who took charge of the case against Mrs Shakespeare. Lydia may have heard whispers about the missing money before Mrs Shakespeare’s accusation. Going to the Puttnams’ therefore appears as if she sought harbour against possible problems.

Victorian Bournemouth (134): assessment

Point 1

A jury might have considered Mrs Shakespeare careless for allowing her purse, containing more than £40, to travel around the house in a dress pocket. Such a person could without difficulty lose things, but seek to blame others. Her defence against Lydia’s charge consisted of prevarication and time-wasting. For example, she had moved to Harrow-on-the-Hill, perhaps even in the week of her accusation. Her distance, therefore, may have enabled the Blackheath police to concentrate their attention on more evident crimes. The police did not appear to consider her social position a sufficient incentive to continue their investigation. The attempt to establish that her daughter, a minor, had written the actual text of the telegram seems nothing more than a red herring. The girl’s reported presence at a school in Boulogne appears a further attempt to bamboozle the plaintiff’s case. Professional advice may have persuaded her to settle.

Point 2

The mentioned heart disease, perhaps reflecting anxiety about her situation, some might see as fortuitous. Furthermore, during the next thirty years of her life, it did not prevent her from involvement in at least three further cases involving servants. She had given Lydia notice because of apparent unsuitability as a housemaid, not for possible theft. The latter would have resulted in instant dismissal, not a month’s notice. If the case had come before a jury, they might, perhaps, have seen her as somebody unused to English society who fell back on privilege as a last resort when in extreme danger. Looking at the telegram, John Scard would have seen Mrs Shakespeare’s vulnerability and probable conviction. That he had a similar social background to the defendant did not give him pause. Instead, he proceeded on the basis that the law protected working people as much as their privileged counterparts.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (xxx) has reported on and assessed the case where a housemaid prosecuted her former employer for criminal libel. Lydia Crouchman married a local butcher, who achieved success, at least two sons in the business, leaving his widow almost £10,000, still evident at her later passing. She had transformed her humble background into a prosperous middling position. Emily Shakespeare and her spinster daughters, in contrast, left much smaller estates, but perhaps retained aspects of their gentility. Nevertheless, born at a social disadvantage to the woman to libelled her, Lydia Crouchman perhaps exceeded her employer on tangible measures.

References

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